


Liquid Gold

by callista1159



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:16:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18739786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callista1159/pseuds/callista1159
Summary: After 8.03, after death, Jaime and Brienne find warmth and touch and each other.





	Liquid Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Well, would you look at that, it's been five years and no fic, and this damn 'ship has been plaguing me forever. This is not the fic I thought it would be; there is more to tell, and so much more to fix in the wake of 8.04, but here it is and I hope you'll enjoy.

She is alive, unexpectedly. She is alive and next to her, he is alive, battered and bruised, but standing and reflecting just a hint of golden light from the dawn breaking over the wreckage of Winterfell. With a surge of elation she barely has the energy to feel, she sees Pod stagger to standing; the dead at his feet, surrounding all of them with stench and spent rage.

Somehow, they have survived the Night King, the battle for the living, the blaze of dragons bright with flame, with ice and fire. Brienne feels weary deep into her bones, her body exhausted with hours and hours of killing, with slashing, kicking, shoving, tearing at death, with looking death in the eye and seeing such extraordinary malice reflecting back at her. She closes her eyes and turns her face to the first weak rays of the sun, moved by so much more than its meager warmth.

Beside her, she hears Jaime cough, feels rather than sees him turn to her. He takes a couple of staggering steps to her side, wordless but radiating life. He leans against her, drawing warmth and keeping her upright, the way he had given her strength to continue through the long, dark hours of the night.

Jaime is there as her knees buckle and her head bows. He is there as tears pull tracks through the grime and grease of war that covers her face. His left hand squeezes at her shoulder, which makes her wince as her bruises make themselves felt. 

Jaime breaks the silence. 

“The crypts, Ser Brienne.” He croaks, voice strained with hours of screaming defiance into the many faces of death. His words are like steel into her spine, and she shrugs him off to seek her lady Sansa in the crypts of the ruined castle. He stays close, focused on his brother as they stagger through the tangled limbs of dead and undead.

They find Sansa and Tyrion unscathed and already engrossed in strategizing clean up in the smaller courtyard. Sansa’s face is drawn, pale, and smudged only at her cheek, but her eyes radiate the kind of blue that only belongs to the living, and Brienne weeps her relief in the first rays of sunlight.

 

* * *  
Brienne is intoxicated with the nearness of Jaime, and the green of his gaze as he smiles to encourage her on. It’s possible the wine in her pitcher has a little something to do with it too, Tyrion keeping her topped up while he distracts her with questions and smiles his lopsided Lannister smile. She covers her cup, absently wondering if the serving girls will bring water and if the waterways have been checked for the polluting presence of the dead, when Jaime’s hand covers her own, and she feels a bolt from her fingertips through to the core of her, heat rising with nowhere to go. Then she meets his gaze and for a moment she is positively molten, liquid gold – Lannister gold – while he tells her it’s time to celebrate, and she must drink. His legs are long, and they bump against her own under the table from time to time, each time shooting tiny arrows of warming fire through her body. She’s thinking she really must move a little, reassert her boundaries, when Tyrion pins her with his gaze and tells her she is a virgin, and Brienne’s eyes flick to Jaime’s in expectation of a mockery, as if it has all been somehow building to this. She sees only fascination. She scarcely sees Tormund as she rises. Tyrion will tell her later than Jaime was on his feet and following her in seconds, all bluff and bravado in the face of the big wildling, but so sure of his own path to her.

* * *

Brienne’s room is warm and she’s trying to surround herself with a heat that will account for the burning inside her body, shame and elation mixed. She hears a knock, and opens the door to Jaime, confusion furrowing her brow as he lays out cups and wine – Dornish, he tells her. The air is thick with heat and expectation, and suddenly she is touching Jaime, exasperated with his slowness over the knots of his shirt, and he is touching her, and there is so much skin, and then they are kissing, his hands in her hair, his mouth firm against her own. 

They kiss until she is dizzy with it; she can’t draw breath. His chest is warm and alive against her own, his hand pulling her closer, even the golden hand warm as it presses into the bruised mess of her back and spine. He is not gentle; nor is she. She likes it. She can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the press of his hips against her own, and there are soft gasps and she realizes, with a start, that these woman’s sounds are coming from her, teased out with Jaime’s mouth and lips and touch. She pulls him further to her, and he breaks from her lips with a groan, panting breath against her throat. When he pulls back to look at her, his eyes are blown wide and black, green barely visible in the light of the fire, and his smile is lazily assured, confident in his own want. 

“Gods, woman,” he pants against her neck, “what you do to me”. _Woman_. Something inside Brienne trembles, and Jaime runs his hand over the slight curve of her ribs and waist, his touch bringing truth to his words. They shed their remaining clothes wordlessly. Jaime pushes at her, guiding one step at a time while he kisses her, until she is backed up against the bed. She takes a moment to gaze at him, old scars catching the firelight, new bruises sullen, shape and form and bulk he had been lacking when she had last seen him without clothes at Harrenhal.

Then Jaime’s mouth is at her breast, finding curves she didn’t know she had, drawing gasps from her, easing her down onto her back on the furs of the bed. She feels the thickness of him hot against her hip, is suddenly desperate for more. They are both gasping; he laughs softly to find her wet and wanting, his fingers insistent and bold. Brienne reaches for him and he pulls back a little, stilling as he sees a flash of her fear. 

“My lady – Brienne. I would not bring dishonor to you, despite all my wanting.”

She startles him with a snort of derision, “After everything, Ser Jaime, after all of this - what is left to be taken?” She pulls him closer, encouraging, open-mouthed kisses at his throat, tasting his pulse. “My honour is not yours to take, but mine to give freely.”

She pulls him down to her, limbs tangling, moans as he rests against the long curve of muscle at her stomach, the skin of him softer than she would ever have begun to imagine. She pulls him to her, inside of her, watching him watching her, and they rock together, beginning to build a world for themselves away from death, away from loyalty and duty and family. He watches her and rolls his hips and together they build hope and light and love. Together they build something beautiful.


End file.
